


The Bright Burn of Salt

by nonisland



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Backstory, Community: fic_promptly, Demons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 13:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonisland/pseuds/nonisland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Every bite’s a challenge, and Ruby has never, ever backed down from a test of will she has any chance at all of winning.</i></p><p>Ruby, a few of her hosts, and salted potatoes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bright Burn of Salt

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "[Ruby, salt](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/29055.html?thread=1294207#cmt1294207)" at [](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**fic_promptly**](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/).
> 
> * * *
> 
> Should you find something, whilst reading one of my stories, that offends you/is incorrect/could offend others/is in any way problematic, please please _please_ do not hesitate to tell me. I will never spew hate at you, I will never attack you, and I will _always_ thank you for taking the time to let me know.

There’s salt in fucking _everything_ these days.

Ruby’s never been one to deny herself the pleasures of the flesh—sins of the flesh, whatever, they’re the same thing. She _could_ avoid everything even a little questionable, but that means leaving almost everything _interesting_ out of her diet.

Which, no.

She’s strong enough that she doesn’t risk throwing herself out of her meatsuit if she eats salt as long as she doesn’t gargle with holy water afterwards or something equally stupid, but _fuck_ it burns the first time she crunches down on a potato chip, like fire outlining her lips and curling around her tongue. She can feel the outlines of her teeth, the way the smoothness of enamel presses each tiny grain of salt or speck of potato like hooks into her skin. It’s like swallowing acid.

She knows. She’s done it.

Ruby manages to force three of them down, the sharp-edged pieces searing all the way down into her stomach, before she has to throw the bag out. Her fingers feel like she’s scrubbed them with sandpaper, and the human in here with her (Sandra, twenty-five, grad student finishing up her PhD) is clawing at the edges of Ruby’s control, desperate and hopeful.

That hope lasts until Ruby crushes it, until their neatly-manicured hands pick up a knife and Sandra can’t make them let it go.

Ruby tries French fries next. They’re easier on the mouth, softer, more tender, and there’s less of an edge to tear at her. She gets bored with Sandra and leaves her, drifts on to a quiet-voiced pharmacist named Yasmin and seduces a priest. It’s something to do to pass the time. She can eat an entire plate of fries by the time she drops Yasmin in an alley and goes blonde (Bethany, photographer, married for a year and a half) for some college girls screwing around with the occult.

Witches are whores, and Ruby’s an awesome madam. Who knows the trade better than she does, after all?

She starts salting the fries extra, dunking them in ketchup. They taste like poison and wildness, hot and crisp and fierce. She flat fucking refuses to let _food_ stop her from eating it. Every bite’s a challenge, and Ruby has never, ever backed down from a test of will she has any chance at all of winning.

And then the Seven escape Hell and Lilith sends her to find the Winchesters. Ruby sits across a diner table from Lucifer’s chosen vessel, steals his fries, makes smartass remarks at him, with the bright burn of salt in her mouth and the giddy rush of danger tingling through her like a knife along her skin.

 _Lord_ , this is going to be good.


End file.
